Ah, Campbell Brown, we hardly knew ye!
Brown blazed across the Deform firmament like a shooting star, fighting sexual predators in the classroom, unions, tenure, and all other things that crossed her fevered brow.
She raised millions, and now she’s off to a new life at Facebook.
Gone and forgotten.
Mercedes Schneider tells the story here.
Steven Singer urges the two big teachers’ unions to watch and wait before they make an endorsement in the Presidential race, and be sure to listen to their members.
The good news is that the Network for Public Education Action is creating a report card for all of the candidates and will regularly update the report card. We want education to be an important issue in the 2020 race, as it was not in 2016.
Singer begins:
Let’s not mince words.
The last Presidential election was a cluster.
And we were at least partially to blame for it.
The Democratic primary process was a mess, the media gave free airtime to the most regressive candidate, and our national teachers unions – the National Education Association (NEA) and American Federation of Teachers (AFT) – endorsed a Democratic challenger too early and without getting membership support first.
This time we have a chance to get it right.
Edu-blogger Peter Greene spoke my feelings when he took to Twitter:
“Just so we’re clear, and so we don’t screw it up again—- NEA and AFT, please wait at least a couple more weeks before endorsing a Democratic Presidential candidate for 2020.”
He’s being snarky.
No one would endorse two years before people actually enter a voting booth.
Singer thinks it was a huge mistake to endorse Hillary Clinton long before the primaries. The result might have been the same, but the membership should have had a chance to weigh in before the decision was made. At the very least, Clinton should have been asked to state in public that she would support public funding for public schools only, with no federal funding for privately owned and privately managed charter schools, even those that call themselves “public charter schools” because they get public money. She should have also been asked to speak out on the subject of testing, its misuse and abuse. She should have been asked if she would change federal law to stop closing schools based on their test scores.
Right now, Congress gives more than $400 million every year to charter schools, even though they don’t need the money. They are flush with money from billionaires, millionaires, Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and tech titans. When you are funded by Betsy DeVos, the Koch brothers, the Walton family, John Arnold, Eli Broad, and Reed Hastings, just to name a few, why does the federal government lavish more funding on charters.
Candidates should be required to seek the support of teachers, not to take it for granted.
We will have more commentary on the Denver teacherss’ strike. Here, Fred Klonsky reminds us of the much-ballyhooed, but ultimately failed merit pay called ProComp, that substituted merit pay for adequate salaries.
Don’t pay attention to Democratic Senator Michael Bennett, who claims to favor the teachers but was superintendent of the Denver public schools who launched corporate reform and lost many millions in tricky financial deals while he was in charge. He was anti-union when he was superintendent and is a big supporter of VAM.
Jesse Hagopian, a teacher activist in Seattle, immersed himself in the UTLA Strike in Los Angeles to learn what teachers won. He interviewed Gillian Russom, a history teacher at Roosevelt High School and member of the United Teachers of Los Angeles Board of Directors, about how the strike was organized, the significant gains it made for students, and implications for the ongoing uprising of teachers around the country..
This is what he learned.
The key lesson is that the model was the zchicago strike of 2012. Even though Karen Lewis stepped down due to her health issues, she and her vision continues to inspire teachers.
There’s been a long history around the country of progressive caucuses fighting for unions to be more active, and to have a broader vision and a broader set of alliances in our struggles. The Chicago 2012 strike and the work of CORE—Caucus of Rank and File Educators—leading up to that strike really helped to educate so many of us around the country and clarified our direction. I’ve been a teacher and union activist in Los Angeles for eighteen years and I studied what worked in Chicago and joined together with others to help bring those lessons here to LA.
In 2013, we pushed for a referendum within our union calling for a campaign for the “Schools LA Students Deserve.” This was modeled off of the Chicago teachers who based their strike around their own “schools our students deserve,” aiming to draw in parents, students, and the community.
Our agenda for union transformation basically came down to transforming the union from a top-down service model to an organizing model. We were crafting our agenda of union demands in conversation with community allies so that it would be an agenda that would draw the active participation of people beyond our own union membership. Up until 2014, we still had a model of one union rep for every school, including massive high schools of like 100 teachers.
Teachers in West Virginia warned that they are still united and #55Strong and prepared to renew their walkout if the legislature passes a bill that contains obnoxious provisions that affect their working conditions and charter schools.
Last year every school in the state’s 55 counties closed down and teachers marched on the State Capitol to demand a 5% pay raise. The governor agreed he would not permit charter school legislation.
The legislature, however, passed a bill that authorized both charters and vouchers.
The announcement comes a day after the House Education Committee approved a stripped down strike-and-insert version of Senate Bill 451 — as compared to what was passed earlier this week in the Senate.
The House Education Committee’s version removes many of the provisions opposed by educators and the leaders of their unions, including provisions that would force members to sign off annually on the deduction of union dues, education savings accounts, and withholding pay during a strike. A non-severability clause — which would make the entire measure null and void should any of its provisions be struck down in a court challenge — was also pulled from the committee’s proposal.
Other provisions in the bill — including the establishment of charter schools — have been significantly altered through amendments in the committee.
While union leaders say they are happy with the bill being whittled away, nothing is final until the legislation is signed by Gov. Jim Justice. The House Education Committee’s strike-and-insert amendment is also merely formative until it is adopted on the chamber floor. If approved with any changes to the version passed by the Senate, the bill would be sent back to the upper chamber.
The teachers of West Virginia have the fighting spirit of the coal miners of that state.
Eric Blanc has covered the wave of teachers’ strikes that started in March 2018. He has been on the ground at everystrike, talking to the rank and file to get their perspectives as working teachers.
In this article, he describes the big lessons of the strike on Los Angeles.
He begins:
It would be hard to overstate the importance of this victory in the country’s second-largest school district. Against considerable odds, Los Angeles teachers have dealt a major blow against the forces of privatization in the city and nationwide. By taking on Democratic politicians in a deep-blue state, LA’s strike will certainly deepen the polarization within the Democratic Party over education reform and austerity. And by demonstrating the power of striking, LA educators have inspired educators nationwide to follow suit.
With new walkouts now looming in Denver, Oakland, Virginia, and beyond, it makes sense to reflect on the reasons why LA’s school workers came out on top—and what their struggle can teach people across the United States. Here are the five main takeaways.
Strikes Work: For decades, workers and the labor movement have been on the losing side of a one-sided class war. A major reason for this is that unions have largely abandoned the weapon of work stoppages, their most powerful point of leverage against employers. Rallies, marches, and civil disobedience are good, but they’re not enough.
Like the red state rebellions of 2018, the depth of the victory in Los Angeles underscores why the future of organized labor depends on reviving the strike. LA also shows that the most powerful strikes, particularly in the public sector, fight not only for the demands of union members, but on behalf of the broader community as well—an approach the United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) calls “bargaining for the common good.”
The Status Quo Is Discredited: LA’s educator revolt is a particularly sharp expression of a nationwide rejection of decades of neoliberalism. Unlike many labor actions, this was not primarily a fight around wages—rather it was a political struggle against the billionaires and their proxies in government.
Like the electoral insurgencies of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders, the upsurge of Los Angeles rank-and-file teachers, and the overwhelming support they received from the parents of their students, shows that working people are looking for an alternative to business as usual. Work actions like LA’s will be an essential part of any movement capable of defeating Trump and the far right.
That’s only lesson number one and two.
Keep reading to learn the other lessons.
The Teacher Revolt continues!
Fred Klonsky reports here that 93% of the Denver Classroom Teachers Association voted to strike.
Denver has been the epicenter of merit pay since 2005. It has confused and demoralized teachers.
The city school board is completely dominated and bought by reformers, who hold every seat, thanks to out-of-state money. The board has jumped on the portfolio model, closing public schools and opening charter schools. Typically the charters and other alternatives are non-union. Betsy DeVos has praised the Denver model, and hopes it will one day add vouchers.
Read Tom Ultican’s appraisal of the failure of Denver’s portfolio district.
Be it noted that Colorado just elected a Democratic Governor Jared Polis, who started two charter schools, and strongly supports school choice, not public schools.
Cory Booker sent a complicated message at his campaign kickoff in New Orleans at Xavier University, where he was sponsored by charter chain and spoke to students.
He told the audience that the power of the people outweighs the power of money.
This is inspirational indeed. It says that those of us fighting the power of the Walton family, the Sackler family, the Koch brothers, Bill Gates, Eli Broad, the DeVos family, Paul Singer, and the many other billionaires attacking our public schools will WIN and the billionaires WILL LOSE.
We–the people–will defeat the powerful.
We will not let them close our public schools with their lies and propaganda. We will not let them turn other American cities into New Orleans.
We want every aspirant for the presidency in 2020–any party–to say where they stand on the issue of the future of public schools, the future of the teaching profession, and the future of collective bargaining.
Thanks, Cory, for reminding us that the power of the people can beat the billionaires and Wall Street, especially those privatizers and hedge funders now supporting your campaign. Itworked for Obama, but it won’t work for you. We know now about the privatization movement.
Tell us where you stand on privatization, the teaching profession, and unions. Or let us guess.
Talk about a hard line! Jeanne Allen of the Center for Education Reform urges LAUSD to fire all the striking teachers!
PeterGreene writes about it here.
Jeanne Allen is a true rightwinger, out there on the edge.
She looks back nostalgically to 1981, when Ronald Reagan broke a strike by the air controllers union by threatening to fire them all if they didn’t return. To work at once.
Her advice to the LAUSD:
In a post-Janus world, teacher unions cannot exist and continue to gain members unless they demonstrate and prove their value. This strike, like others we’re seeing around the country, is a desperate attempt by the union to maintain relevance in a day and age where they can
no longer require teachers to join.California needs to break the district up into 100 different pieces, have much smaller units, and allow for the freedom, flexibility, access and innovation that’s happening in charters. If it weren’t for charter schools, education in L.A. would be at the level of Mississippi. The UTLA sees charters
as such a threat to the status quo that it is willing want to hurt students kids even more to score a victory against charters.My advice to the district: Hold strong. Replace them all. If they want a dramatic impact on education, fire the union and begin to repair the schools, just like Reagan fired the air traffic controllers.
Peter Greene says that Jeanne Allen makes no pretense of being benign and caring. She despises public schools and teachers unions. She has no mask. She believes in privatizing schools, period.
Peter takes her seriously and wonders where LA would find another 30,000 or so teachers to replace the current force.
That’s very kind of him but the reality is that California is a blue state, a state where union-busting is absurd. A new poll by the ABC local station found that the trachers’ Strike has overwhelming public support (about 2/3 support it) and in,y 15% oppose the teachers.
Ain’t gonna happen, Jeanne!
Here’s an idea: how about giving teachers in LA the same salary as Jeanne Allen and call it a day. They work harder and have jobs of far more social value than hers.
This statement was released today by the Chicago Teachers Unuon, the pioneers of #RedForEd in 2012.
Now is a good time to remember CTU President Karen Lewis and her inspirational leadership of the 2012 strike.
Duncan take on LA educators’ strike shows he knows nothing of real student needs
CTU blasts former U.S. education secretary for arguing Los Angeles teachers’ should back off demands in face of ‘lack of resources’ in state with fifth largest economy in the world.
CHICAGO, January 15, 2019—
Chicago Teachers Union President Jesse Sharkey issued the following statement today in response to public pronouncements – including in The Hill – by former U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan on Los Angeles educators, who began a strike on Monday.
“Arne Duncan has never taught a day in his life. He sent his children to an elite private school with small class sizes and great resources. He landed his job as CEO of Chicago Public Schools through insider ties – where he pushed policies that hurt our public school students’ access to the very same resources his own children had. He’s pushed endlessly for school privatization, and he’s been a national proponent of the teacher blame game as a way to dodge the real need for more resources for public education. Now he wants to silence Los Angeles teachers who are demanding the very supports for their students that Duncan’s children received. That’s the height of hypocrisy.
“LA teachers know what their students need: smaller class sizes, more staff for special education and bilingual education, and the resources and wrap-around supports that allow low-income students of color to thrive as life-long learners and productive adults. Duncan has instead promoted the opposite, by starving neighborhood public schools, promoting privatization and austerity, and purging Black educators from our classrooms. Public education is a right. Duncan has treated it like an afterthought, and has zero credibility with the parents, educators and community residents who care about equity for ALL public students.
“When he’s shilling for management, nowhere does Duncan mention the toxic impact of right wing tax policy on Los Angeles’ Black and Latinx students. He conveniently fails to mention Eli Broad or the Broad Foundation and their scheme to orchestrate the mass privatization of Los Angeles public schools. Instead, Duncan says the union should ‘cooperate’ more with the very management that is seeking to undercut public schools through mass charter expansion. That mirrors his statement almost a decade ago that the devastation of Hurricane Katrina was the ‘best thing’ to happen to New Orleans’ public schools, because it opened the ground for mass charter privatization. As in Chicago under Duncan and his successors, privatization in New Orleans has slashed the number of Black teachers, and more than ten years on, New Orleans’ Black working class parents, students and residents charge that the experiment has failed them. Duncan’s policies profit private operators – and undermine parent voice, public accountability and the educational needs of students.
“Just as Duncan regularly shortchanged CPS by refusing to identify and raise progressive sources of revenue that our schools need, he massively expanded selective enrollment schools for well-off white students. He continued those policies as education czar, to the detriment of school districts across the nation.
“The educational policies he put in motion in Chicago and pushed in Washington have helped drive out thousands of Black families from Chicago, families who struggled to find stable schools for their children at the same time they confronted racist, classist city policies in housing, policing and economic development. As a principal architect of Chicago’s disastrous school closure experiment, Duncan was CEO during the first wave of massive charter expansion in Chicago – forcing neighborhood public schools that had been under-resourced for decades into brutal educational hunger games that have left neighborhood schools starved for resources. As US Education Secretary, he promoted the misnamed ‘Race to the Top’, publicly blaming teachers for the dire consequences of racist school funding practices and endless austerity. He’s dismissed class size as an issue – an excuse to purge thousands of Black public educators in Chicago, at a time when a growing body of research shows that our schoolchildren need more, not fewer, educators of color.
“We need the opposite of what Duncan brought to the table in Chicago and what he proposes in LA. We need smaller class sizes, respect for veteran teachers of color, progressive forms of revenue to adequately support public school students, adequate staffing for special education and bilingual education, and a school nurse in every school. We need an end to the failed school privatization experiment. And we need respect for the voices of parents and educators who are sick of being shortchanged by the political elites that Duncan serves. Instead of asking Los Angeles teachers to shut up and accept less for their students, Duncan should be denouncing the very policies he implemented that have so profoundly harmed public education across the nation.”
